Xiaomi's Redmi fascinated by followers in Singapore

SINGAPORE - Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi announced that 5,000 handsets of Redmi were sold out in just 8 minutes and 4 seconds during its third round of online sales in Singapore on Thursday.

It was the first time the company revealed its specific quantities of the online sales since the Redmi debuted on Feb 21 when Singaporeans swept over unspecified quantities within 8 minutes, During the second round of online sales on Feb 27, all Redmi sets were sold out within 6 minutes.

Industry insiders are curious about the limited quantities that Xiaomi distributed during the first two rounds of online sales, doubting that the Chinese smartphone maker was deliberately using the so-called hunger marketing.

Known as "Hong Mi" in China, the Redmi is a quad-core 1.5Ghz phone with dual sim that runs a modified version of Android OS' Jelly Bean, known as MIUI.

The Redmi was sold at a relatively low price of S$169($133.6), attracting a lot of buyers. Singapore's three local telecoms said they would retail the phone at S$0 on selected post-paid plans.

In addition, Xiaomi's flagship product Mi3 was also launched in Singapore on March 7. It only cost 419 Singapore dollars ($331.2), the same as in the market of Chinese mainland.

Xiaomi said the launch for Redmi and Mi3 was the first step for a global presence, positioning Singapore as their regional hub.

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